It's really good to hear from you after quite a while! Welcome back to the RRF forum! We hope you are well!

You will have noticed that the RRF now has a new-look site - thanks to our newest RRF committee member, Anne Glennie, who is a dab hand at creating websites with a more modern look!

Anne has also built in a 'blog' which is new to the RRF. Please do take a look if you haven't already done so. We have some great early contributions from RRF committee members Dr Marlynne Grant and Elizabeth Nonweiler for example:

We've still included links to the archived, hard copy RRF newsletters and, those of us who debate online and who are in various networks, still find ourselves referring to various pieces within those newsletters. We've even found references to them in strong debate taking place in Australia via advocates of evidence-informed reading instruction in Australian schools!

A couple of years ago, some of us were involved in building up an international team for a similar organisation to the UK Reading Reform Foundation - but with a more international representation. In other words, flawed reading instruction continues to be a global issue and we still have a lot of work to do before all learners are best served by evidence-informed provision. You can see the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction here:

I think my views have evolved since I was last a regular contributor on the forum. I'm very much more pro-free market these days, having pushed the limits of my peripheral vision, and hence nothing is off the table, as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to exposure to open competition.

One thing I recall is how welcoming you were when I stumbled upon the rrf, after doing some personal research into Dyslexia and finding Susan Godsland's Dyslexia site. I'm really a big-picture kind of guy and I guess I gave myself the freedom to look anywhere and expect confirmation and more pieces of the puzzle to fit. That's how I ended up looking more closely at the history of the 'reading wars'.

Anyway, I look forward to condensing the reading debate's developments since then. And hope to make some useful observations as a lay person/outside observer again.

You guys seem as dedicated as ever. Amazing. How long has the forum been going now? Must be more than 12 years or so. I know the RRF itself goes further back.